A LUXURIOUS saloon car that Jeremy Clarkson once managed to get up to 201 mph can be picked up today for less than £11,000. The Volkswagen Phaeton, a premium class set of wheels that the German brand sold between 2003 and 2016, is a motor good enough to compete with the very best from the likes of Jaguar, BMW and Audi. Clarkson featured the car in a 2003 episode of Top Gear, describing it as a "German joke" because it cost a staggering £65,000 from new at the time - roughly the equivalent of £115,000 in 2024.
He added: "The Phaeton was the swan song for VW's boss Ferdinand Piech - he was retiring and wanted to go out with a bang. "He wanted to make the best car ever." Despite boasting a lot of space, especially in the rear, the motor lacked the necessary class inside to compete with other luxury cars, and Autocar described it as having a bit of an 'Airport taxi' image.
To this end, the Phaeton wasn't a big seller and fell short of its global targets - although it proved to be a success in China. In 2013, The Economist named the Phaeton as one of Europe's biggest loss making cars, and it was discontinued in 2016. It's an amazing engine, it's an amazing car Despite its flaws, it boasted an incredible motor - with the top-of-the-range example featuring a 444bhp 6.
0-litre engine which was essentially two V6 engines combined. During his Top Gear test drive, Clarkson added: "Piech insisted it had to stay absolutely flat and level with no vibration - which sounds like overkill be.